The Day The Music Died
by Sara47Q
Summary: Darcy willed the phone to ring. Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE AVENGERS. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE AVENGERS. SERIOUSLY.


She'd always known if something happened to him, she'd never hear about it. They'd kept their relationship quiet, it was nobody's business, and neither of them wanted to deal with anyone else's bullshit about age differences or whatever. Not to mention that her clearance level was basic at best, he could barely talk about work, when they were together they mostly made up for lost time, long distance relationships were like that. So what if most of their interactions were over the phone and through text? It worked for them.  
They'd seen each other fairly frequently at first, he was back every couple of weeks to check on Jane's work, introduce her to other scientists and Tony Stark, who came out to help with ideas for power sources and whatever other sciencey crap they were working on. Jane was pretty oblivious most of the time to things that were not the Einstein-Rosen bridge and had never noticed the two of them spending extra time together.

After a couple of months she'd insisted that she have a code name, something he could use when he talked about her to other people, and she should have one for him. She may have liked calling him the Son of Coul, but Jane would know immediately who that was. So she'd decided on calling him Cash, as in, the Man in Black and he called her "the cellist" since he said she played him like a fine instrument.

This had gone on well for over a year until she'd decided that she needed to finish her degree and had moved back to Portland. She only had one semester left and thought once she was done she could move to New York, find a grad school and be closer to Phil. But she'd only been back a couple of months when he became incommunicado. Then she watched the news and saw what was going down. Even Thor was back to fight the crazy aliens. She'd gotten some texts from him, something about Stark wanting to fly him out to visit his cellist and how he would like to see her soon, when they were finished with the alien crap.

And then nothing. She tried to will her phone to ring, and nothing. So she knew. The only reason he wouldn't have given her some sort of sign that he was all right was because he wasn't. And she had no one to call, no way to find out what happened. Jane was helping out some colleague in Norway or somewhere and she didn't have anyone else to call.

So she cleaned. She started in the bedroom putting away clean laundry that had been sitting in her basket for a week or so, and then ended up on her hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom. She was crying, not even sure if she should be, he could just be busy cleaning up after what the news was calling "the Avengers." But her heart knew.

At 3 AM she was cleaning the drawers in her tiny kitchen, all of her silverware and junk was out on the counter while she scrubbed in the drawers. And in the back of one she found Pepper Potts card. Pepper had given it to her when Tony was helping Jane out at the lab. She had no idea how it had gotten into the back of her silverware drawer. She sat on the floor and stared at it. Could she risk calling Pepper? It had been more than 12 hours since she'd watched the Avengers fight aliens on the news, and more than 24 since she'd heard from Phil. It would be 6 AM in New York.

She went to the bathroom and scrubbed her face and downed a bottle of water, hoping to not sound like she'd been crying off and on for hours. And dialed the number. She got voicemail and left a quick message, hoping it wasn't too rambley or hysterical, asking if she would please call her back and let her know that everyone was ok after what she'd seen on the news. She didn't mention Phil, just a hopefully casual "everyone."

She put everything away in the kitchen and looked around. She was pretty sure her tiny apartment had never been this clean, even when she moved in. She felt too gross from cleaning to get into bed, so she took a quick shower, turning the volume on her phone up to the highest setting and putting it as close to the shower as possible so she would hear it if it rang. It was probably the fastest shower she'd ever taken and she was toweling her hair when the phone rang.

She answered fast, almost dropping the phone with her still damp hands.

"Hello?"  
"Darcy?"

"Pepper! Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, I know it's still early there."

"It's ok. We haven't really gone to bed yet ourselves. You saw the news, then?"  
"Yeah, they were saying alien attack? I saw Tony and Thor, they seemed ok afterwards."

"They're fine. Tony is pretty beat up, Thor took Loki back to Asgard…"  
"Loki? Thor's brother?"  
"Yeah, he was the one who orchestrated the whole thing. They've kept that out of the news, at least. He had your Dr. Selvig under some kind of mind control but he's ok now."  
"Eric! I didn't even know he was involved. I haven't been able to get a hold of Jane, but she said she might not have any cell service or anything while she was out of town." She tried to be casual when she asked, "What about Agent Coulson? He was our contact with SHIELD when I was working for Jane."

There was silence for a few seconds. "This is a new number for you, isn't it? It's a Portland area code. I didn't realize you weren't working with Jane anymore."

Somehow she knew. Of course she did, she's Pepper Potts. She has special powers. "I moved here a couple of months ago to finish my last semester and finally get my degree so I can move on to grad school." More silence. "Pepper? You didn't answer my question."

Pepper practically whispered, "You're not a cellist."

Tears started falling down Darcy's face again. "Not technically. What happened?"

"Loki. They had him in custody, he was breaking out and Phil tried to stop him. They couldn't get to him in time. Darcy, I'm so sorry."

"I saw on the news that Captain America was helping Tony and Thor and everyone. Did he get to meet him?"

"He did. The Captain was going to sign his trading cards for him."

"I'm glad. That must have meant a lot to him."

Pepper was crying, too, and Darcy didn't bother holding in the sobs anymore. Suddenly Tony was on the line as well. "Who is this?"

"Tony?"  
"Darcy? Foster's lab monkey? What did you say to Pepper to make her start crying?"

Darcy was sitting on the floor between the toilet and the bathtub, using toilet paper to wipe her running nose and trying not to hiccup in his ear. "Phil said you were going to fly him out. He was excited. Thank you, for that."

"He? Phil? What?" it wasn't usual, in her experience, that anyone confused Tony Stark to the point of losing sentences.

"I have to go. Tell Pepper thank you. It's better to know for sure." She hung up, not being able to stand talking to anyone anymore.

She went to her room and grabbed a t-shirt Phil had left once to use as a sleep shirt and wished she hadn't done laundry so it might still smell like him. She crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep, holding the teddy bear she'd quit sleeping with years ago but usually kept on her dresser. Under her pillow she found her Ipod. The Ipod that started this whole mess. She'd kissed him when he brought it back and decided she never wanted to stop. She threw the fucking thing against the wall as hard as she could, watching it break apart and pulling a pillow over her face to scream into. She couldn't believe she'd never see him again, never hold him again, never kiss him again. But at least she knew what had happened. He'd died the way he lived, helping save the world. It was cold comfort, but it was something at least.


End file.
